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48 Hours - A Las Vegas Trip Report (Part 2)
By Terrance Chan

Thursday, January 4

"Hey, are you Terrence Chan?"

With inconveniences like food and personal hygiene taken care of, and five hours of sleep under my belt, it was time to decimate the Strat NLHE $125 tourney.

When I bought in before noon, the guy in front of me turned to study me, quickly asking me if I was Terrence Chan. After the initial surprise, I said yes, and he introduced himself, an RGP lurker. The floor supervisor asked me if I posted much, and I said "one in a while," to which the lurker's reponse was, "once in a while? He's on like every day." Gee…thanks.

With over 2 hours to go before the tourenament started, I took my bags to my second reservation at the Barbary Coast.

Tangential side comment: Vegas in January seems much more shady than Vegas in high season. I had one guy ask me for "bus fare" and another guy just stared directly in my eyes and said, "I got weeeeeeeeed".

I wanted to say, "buddy, I'm from Vancouver. When I get home, I could acquire so much weed it would supply about fourteen Snoop Doggy Dogg concerts." But I thought the better of it.

His uh, "lady" companion said something like "mmhmm, honey" while scanning me head-to-toe. I thought she was going to pinch me or something the way she was looking at me, but thought the better of it.

Anyhow... The room at BC was swanky for $39. Not quite a suite, of course, but a nice room. But I'm not here to marvel at some beds and tables. Back on the bus to the Strat…

At the Strat they had a 110% guaranteed win when you sign up for their slot club and play a half hour. I played some video poker and won all of 30 cents. Hey, I was freerolling! Come to think of it, I should have played the $1 machines. Oh well. Actually, I was prepared to just drop $20 or so into their machines to get on their mailing list for coupons and junk.

Tournament time. Before the tournament began I met Lurker #2 amazing that these lurkers could recognize "an Asian guy in a casino" as John Harkness put it and also "mdmzero", a local but probably not an old rock. :) I wasn't at either of their tables, though. Mike and I chatted for a while, and the four of us young RGPers wished one another luck and found each other at the first break, where we all survived.

Hours of boredom and seconds of stupidity

In the tournament, I scored one kill, and was at chip leader at T17000 during the beginning of Round 3, dropping to T14000 by the end of the round at the break. The table was very passive; everyone playing a conservative strategy trying to collect chips. All this changed after the break. After the break, I made a conscious decision - for better or for worse - to play faster. With all the stacks pretty equal and the blinds 100-200 with a 50 ante, I figured it was time to get aggressive and build a little bit. I brought in four straight hands to 700.

Twice everyone folded, and twice I got played back at. Not a bad ratio at all, and things were going well. However, it came to a crashing halt _very_ quickly.

On one hand, I brought it in for 700, it was raised 2000 more, and I folded to a bet on the flop. I was down to about T10000. The next hand, I brought it in for my standard raise UTG to 700 holding KsTs. The cutoff - a big stack - deliberated for a while, and called.

When the flop came 9s-7x-2s, I pushed it all in there with my flush draw and two overcards, and was called by the cutoff, who had 99. I had only 9 outs, unlike the 15 I thought I really had. No spades fell-actually, as if the poker gods wanted to reinforce how badly I played, no kings or tens fell either-and I was off to the Bellagio after wishing the rest of the RGP contingent good luck. (I really hope one of you three won the thing!)

Winning Low Limit Hold'em?

Having gone all-in and subsequently all-out on a dubious play that leaves one talking to oneself, I headed over to Bellagio, determined to right some wrongs. The wait for 8-16 was pretty long, so I put myself on the list for both the 4-8 and 8-16. I figured if I beat the 4-8 and 8-16, I'd dive into 15-30 later on. But the 4-8 had two newbie players, and when I got called for the 8-16, I couldn't leave the game.

I was in Seat 4, and Seat 5 was a total hold'em virgin. He was playing most of the cards without much rhyme or reason, passively calling, calling, calling, like most newbies. Seat 7 was the other newbie. He was even more of a calling station. And this guy was on a roll. With his lucky charm (wife) at his side, me, Seat 3 and the newbie in #7 saw a final board of A-K-T-x-y.

Holding KJs, I had raised preflop and bet the flop and turn (for value), but checked the river to the 7 seat, who checked. I showed my second pair, Seat 3 mucked, and then #7 debated whether to show his hand, finally turning over QJ for the flopped stone-cold nuts. I congratulate the winner for yet another pot, and much to my chagrin the loudmouth in Seat 3 decided to tell _his_ wife how the "guy didn't even know what hand he had! He didn't know what he had!"

Seat 3 was a decent player for the limit, but the kind of guy who would get annihilated at 10-20 or above. He was the lesson-giver, and he was grating on my nerves all night. Any time I bet, he would say to his wife, "oh, he [referring to me] is a good player". (Naturally, I used this to run a successful bluff on him.) After the QJ hand, the other newbie in Seat 5 even whispered in my ear that "he didn't know what he had, huh?" I told him, "I don't think so. But it's none of my business," talking more to Seat 3 than anyone. But he wasn't listening. He went on giving lessons.

Seat 3 was being really friendly to me. I don't know why. I think he felt I was the only other player at the table worthy of playing poker or something, just because I know you don't play J2 because it's suited. But when the flop came K-K-7 and the Seat 7 newbie was heads-up with a competent player in Seat 9, he made a comment that #9 probably had three kings.

I shot him a glance and gave him a one-word warning. When he repeated the comment on the river, I informed him how completely unacceptable that was. His response was that he was talking to his wife, not to the other players. I told him that it was audible across the table, to which he said that wasn't his problem. The dealer did nothing, except to say that he really *shouldn't* say anything, as if implying it was just bad ettiquette. At that point I put myself on the 8-16.

8-16: The Princess and the Pauper (Poker Player)

I got into the 8-16 around 8:00pm. I left it around 5:30am. What I learned was that poker at the Bellagio is a hell of a lot more interesting than the Holiday Inn in Vancouver, BC.

When I arrived at my seat - #8 - there were seven other players and a $20 bill in #9. After an hour of getting more or less blinded off like the tightwad rock I am, #9 sat down. #9 concerned me; she was a well-dressed woman in her mid-to-late twenties. In my experience, these players are more dangerous than their male counterparts. And although she played tight for the first half-hour, I would quickly find out that this woman was an any two suited, any two big, any ace gamb00ler!

Among the other things I would learn from "Sandy" was that she was from New York and her boyfriend was off blowing four digits a hand at the high-limit blackjack room, and that she just finished off a 7-course meal at the Bellagio at some restaurant I probably couldn't pronounce properly. She came down to Vegas every other month, and was of course fully comped for everything under the sun. When I asked if she was staying at the Bellagio, she responded as though no other hotel in Las Vegas even existed. Why this woman was sitting 8-16 is beyond me, but I'm happy to merely count my blessings.

Anyway, Sandy and I developed somewhat of a rapport. She suddenly got the idea that any time I raised, she would call. And she was a woman of her word. I would raise with AK, she would call with 83s. I would raise with JJ, she would be in there with A4. However, I wasn't able to get much from her until a couple late pots in the evening, when she decided this philosophy wasn't really the best idea. Why she would care at 8-16 is beyond me, though.

The rest of the table was just as interesting. Seat 6 (tentatively named since she changed seats about 4 times, and even moved to another game when things got really desperate for her) was a hard-looking woman who looked as though she'd been playing for the last 40 years, and all of them break-even.

On her left was the perennially on-tilt Italian guy, who was, uh, perennially on tilt. He was a crazy gambler too. On my immediate right was a guy who didn't say more than a dozen words aside from "call" and "raise" the whole time he was there. All he did was take 4 racks to the cage after 3 hours.

Later on, a big Asian guy wearing lots of gold and his first name on his bracelet sat down. He had been playing some 200-400 mixed game (holdem, Omaha and lowball draw, or something to that effect) and decided on a lark to sit in this dinky 8-16. He knew Sandy, but apparently not all that well since he called her "Cindy" about 15 times before he was finally corrected by her.

Well, if this wasn't a Mike-meets-Johnny-Chan-in-"Rounders" moment, I don't know what was. Sure, I'd never heard of this guy before, but if he wasn't a total fish in the big game, he was probably a player. I've heard Sklansky say on here many times that many of the big-limit fish would decimate the low-limit games, and even the low-limit winners. Well, I happen to be a damn decent low-to-mid limit player, so this was my chance to find out what's what.

I wanted to get in a hand with this guy, but to my surprise he played pretty tight, aside from straddling a hand. I didn't adjust my strategy to play him at all, and I certainly wasn't going to get in a pot with a hand I wouldn't get in a pot with your average player with. But I did try to gun for him.

One time I found AQs and raised two limpers, all the while staring in the big player's eyes. He contemplated, and passed. I ended up folding on the turn when the board came rags. It looks like it wasn't to be. I wasn't going to be Mike McD and 3-bet this dude with no hand and try to "outplay" (terminology used very loosely) him.

He did play one interesting hand. He raised preflop on the button after some limpers, and was called four ways. The flop was J-6-2 with a flush draw. All checked to the button, who bet. The turn blanked off, and the river paired the turn.

The big guy and a conservative player who'd been playing since I got there went six bets on the river, before the big guy called, showing 22. The other player showed 66 to rake a big pot. I thought the big limit player played this hand horribly. Is this stuff standard fare for the high limits?

After that hand, the big guy gave his chips to a friend, who played the rest of the time I was there. The friend found aces in the hole three times (shuffling algorithm at the Bellagio must be off) and nearly doubled his stake.

Then the other 8-16 broke, and we had a couple new players. One was the young, aggressive guy from the Stratosphere. I think he's a bit more suited to the NL tournaments, but his limit game is strong too. The other one was a 19-24 year old Asian guy who also knew the big player. This guy made an absolutely phenomenal move that blew me away on the river.

I wish I could remember what the hell it was, but it was 5:00 in the morning. Whatever it was, it must have been a really creative move to surprise me so much at 5:00 on a hand I wasn't even involved in. I just remember replaying the hand in my head at the table and thinking he couldn't possibly have extracted more money on the river than the way he did it.

By the way, you may have noticed this whole 10-hour session at the B did not involve any mention of me eating food. This is because I consumed about seven of those strawberry Juliuses they serve down there. Highly recommended for the starving poker player on a short non-poker bankroll. I wasn't even the slightest bit hungry after sucking one of those down every other time I heard the word "Cocktails". Anyhow, $399 on the good side(a disappointing result, to be perfectly honest), I went across the street and collapsed into bed.